Jon Gadsby: Doctor B, your cure is worse than the disease

What the hell is going on? Those of a musical bent may notice I've added "the hell" and removed an apostrophe "s" from the thoughtprovoking lyric of a song by 4 Non Blondes.

Before the Non Blondes' aficionados leap to their word processors, or fountain pens filled with green ink (and green ink is the standard medium for this sort of communication), accusing me of the most atrocious plagiarism, I shall try to shield my tender parts, or at least cover my quivering buttocks from the blast.

But what the hell is going on? I ask again, and the reference to green ink is not an invitation for another letter about "the blue people" from whomever you may be out there.

If readers wish to learn more about "the blue people," write, phone, fax, or e-mail the Herald, and I shall tell you in a later piece, though I warn it does not make comfortable reading.

Neither do the latest pronouncements from the learned Dr Brash, of Reserve Bank fame, and it is to him I address the question: What the hell is going on?

In a medical sense, I would not consult Don Brash with a head cold, although he would be high on my list of preferred clinicians, were I contemplating euthanasia.

Residential property prices are in free-fall, making about three-quarters of Auckland homeowners technically insolvent. The stock market has crashed (they heard the bang as far away as Huntly), and our best and brightest are heading overseas in Pied Piper proportions.

So what happens? What soothing balm does our celebrated Reserve Bank physician apply to these national wounds? He whacks up interest rates, that's what he does. Give the drowning man a drink, that's the story, Dr Brash.

Real estate's shaky, the "market" has turned to egg custard, where would you like us to put our few remaining pennies, oh learned PhD?

Somewhere productive, you say? What? Kiwifruit? Goats, deer, ostriches, timber? Information technology? (God help us!) Meat and wool? (God help us even more.) The movie industry? (Even God won't help us there, although Gandalf might.)

So what do you want, Dr Brash, other than to see this place brought to a grinding, seized-up stop, like a wound-back Mitsubishi diesel? I've had one. I know! A bit of oil for the national motor might be an idea. But then we have the terrifying spectre of inflation looming at a spine-chilling 1.5 per cent. How ghastly. I shan't sleep tonight.

Strangely enough, I hazard we both remember the days when I was "Jeez Wayne," and you were the National Party candidate for East Coast Bays and inflation was running at around 16 per cent. Somehow, despite the Reserve Bank, we survived.

So once again, what's going on, oh Gnome of Zealand? You are wealthy. I am rich only in a cultural sense. Interest rates are going up, you say? The economy needs this.

Yes, just like I needed a caning for talking during assembly when I was a third former. Deep down, and especially in my bottom, I knew this was going to be good for me. It hurt like hell and accomplished nothing, but I'm confident it was good for me.

So wield that cane, Dr Brash. Enjoy the crack of bamboo against the taut and defenceless national bottom. Join the ranks of the lunatic who said it was hurting him more than me, as he flexed his wrist.

In the meantime, where shall we invest our pitifully inadequate savings, Don? In something large and productive, you say? Your salary, I presume this means.

I'll tell you what - I've got a dollar left, and I'm going to put it for a win on No 3 in the next available race at the Northcote Tavern TAB. If it wins, I'll put it on No 3 in the next race, and so on. I am also available as an investment consultant. I trust your buttocks are quivering as mine are, Dr Brash, at this prospect.

"Brash," incidentally, is defined in a respectable but non-Reserve Bank-approved dictionary as: 1: tastelessly or offensively loud, showy or bold; 2: hasty, rash, impudent; 3: loose rubbish such as broken rock, hedge clippings, etc.

Need I say more? Dr Brash is certainly a "non blonde," and once more I plead, as the ladies so succinctly put it, "What's going on?"